


Appointed Unto Man

by Langerhan



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood and Violence, Crisis of Faith, Early Modern Era, Gen, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Religious Fanaticism, Torture, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:47:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23162734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Langerhan/pseuds/Langerhan
Summary: When two men knock on Aziraphale's door in the middle of the night asking for a priest to perform the last rites, he's ready. He just doesn't expect them to be the reason last rites are needed.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 87
Collections: Clerical Omens, My faves - Good Omens Whump





	Appointed Unto Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clavicular](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clavicular/gifts).



> Happy birthday!

If he was going to be honest, thwarting was not the strongest tool in Aziraphale's wheelhouse, no matter what Crowley might try to persuade his bosses. Thwarting was more an action for the humans; ineffability meant that any evil was much better undone by their mortal hands than by a quick miracle. Unfortunately, their human brains had a tendency to look at Aziraphale and register something around the edges: something along the lines of _ah yes, this one has definitely smote evil before, he can help us_.

Aziraphale didn't much care for it.

“Brother,” said one of the men tasked with bringing him from the monastery, “have you ever seen an interrogation before?”

The men had knocked on the door in the middle of the night asking for someone to perform the last rites. Aziraphale had gathered up his books, oil, wine and bread, and followed them out into the dark with fewer questions than he should have asked.

He realised the man was still looking shrewdly at him across the cart. “No,” he finally replied, clearing his throat, “no, I, ah, can't say I have. Not often much call for friars during torture sessions.”

“Oh, you'd be surprised,” the driver remarked nonchalantly. His accent was from further afield than they'd be able to make with a single horse in time for some poor soul's last confession. “Plenty of times I've had someone begging for a priest afore we even get to trial.”

“This one didn't, but Simon reckons it's our Christian duty to get him seen to just in case.”

“Aye,” Simon nodded, “that's right. Even if he is a witch, we're obliged as good Christian men to let him take the blessed sacrament one last time.”

 _Witch_ , Gabriel said, _is the title humans give to demonic forces at work_.

 _Witch_ , Crowley said, _is the title humans give to anyone they don't like_.

Aziraphale kept his hands on his lap. He breathed deeply. He listened to the horse's hooves thumping gently along the path. He felt the other man's thigh pressed up against his own. He didn't speak. The two men did.

“Here we are,” Jack said when they got there, putting out his hand. Jack was polite, was the worst of it. Neither as pragmatic as Simon nor as pious, but he wanted to do the job to the best of his ability. To provide for Mary and their children, even if it meant breaking a man's bones one at a time until he aspirated his own vomit. “Are you fine to get down, Brother?”

Climbing down by himself wasn't easy, but it was preferable to coming any closer to all the things that Jack had done.

The tunnel was dark enough that Simon had to light a torch and narrow enough that they filed down it one at a time. When they got to the end of it, Simon coughed a little and turned around, swinging the flame too close to Aziraphale's face to be comfortable.

“I should warn you,” he said, “this witch has a true aversion to piety. I didn't want to scare you before, but we've only been able to encourage his confessions by using holy relics which belong to our brotherhood. So while I'd ask you to bring peace to his eternal soul, know that none of us will hold it against you should he reject your blessings.”

The door dragged heavily against the stone floor. Inside the room looked, Aziraphale thought wildly, like a farrier's. That tool was for pulling a splinter from a horse's leg, and that one was for helping a mare give birth, and that one was for hammering out the horseshoes, and that one –

“Hey, angel,” Crowley said hoarsely. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Simon put a gentle hand on Aziraphale's shoulder. “Sometimes when a man is close to death, he'll think he sees messengers of the Lord. Pay it no mind, Brother.”

Aziraphale shrugged off Simon's hand. He faced the two torturers who had been left behind; two stocky men, neither of them looking at all concerned that their victim was dribbling blood.

“You thought he was dying and you kept going.”

“Simon and Jack thought he was dying,” one of the men argued weakly, “me and Bate thought he was faking.”

“Well done to Bate and Morris,” said Crowley, pausing to choke and cough before continuing, “they were right, was faking the whole suffocating thing, s'what us witches...” His gaze unfocused.

“It's what witches do,” Morris finished when it became clear Crowley wasn't going to.

“I think you should discuss this strategy amongst yourselves,” Aziraphale said firmly, and all four men were suddenly very interested in each other's opinions on how to tell if a witch was dying.

Crowley's left eye was swollen almost to shut. There were red fingermarks around his throat, dark purple shadows up his cheeks, and so many cuts across his mouth that Aziraphale couldn't tell how much of the dark blood dribbling down his chin was internal.

“Let them finish,” he mumbled. Aziraphale startled. “Might as well. Get to add a few to the collection. An' smiting me, that'd be something f'you to tell the guys upstairs.”

“I'm not sure they'd go to Hell for killing a demon,” Aziraphale replied, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Or a witch, for that matter.”

“Trust me,” Crowley hissed. “They're enjoying themselves. They finish this and they're mine.”

Aziraphale stepped back. Jack stepped forward. “What do you think, Brother?”

“I'll stay,” he said. “Until I'm needed.”

Simon's hand cracked across Crowley's cheek. Even from a suitable distance Aziraphale could hear the sharp whistle of gasping breath Crowley drew in. Red blossomed around the indigo like a bloodied meadow.

“Witch, tell us who it was taught you to consort with devils.”

Crowley chuckled until he choked. “Well, Lord Dagon was the one who said I should take the lads out for a few drinks, if that's what you mean.”

Jack, on the other side, yanked at Crowley's hair until his head arced back – because surely, a little humiliation was nothing compared to everything else they'd tarnished their collective souls with – and backhanded him across the other cheek.

“Apologies, Brother. He's confessed multiple times to intimacy with demons, but hasn't yet told us who brought him in.”

Aziraphale bit back a reply. Any one he gave would only lead to more questions.

“So which lads did _you_ bring into your coven?” Morris asked. Maybe he was quicker than he looked if he was the only one to pick up on that.

Crowley's breath rattled in his chest. He looked up at Aziraphale, eyes wide and panicked. “No,” he said quietly, “not like that. I didn't mean... Not humans. None of them deserve...”

“Well done, Morris,” Simon said. He sounded grossly impressed. “I think you should take this one.”

The blood on Crowley's linen smock was half-dried. Before the four men had kidnapped him, he'd obviously been dressed as a trader of some sort; now he looked like he'd had to leave the house in the middle of the night. Morris ripped his smock upwards and Aziraphale saw where the bleeding was coming from – six holes, three on each side, equidistant in a way which suggested a tool rather than a more personal touch. They were ragged and blackened at the edges.

When Morris pressed three fingers into one, Crowley screamed.

“Which of our good, pious lads did you try to lead astray?”

Crowley screamed until his throat gave out and he resorted to cracked whimpering instead.

“Tell us and we can get them back on the right path. It doesn't have to go as badly for them as it did for you.”

It was the sort of promise Aziraphale would have expected to hear from Heaven during the first war. It was a promise which had broken people before. _You can save them._

“Brother,” Simon said softly, “you can look away for this part.”

Morris and Jack yanked one of Crowley's arms up each, and Aziraphale realised with sick horror that they'd been dislocated for at least a couple of hours. The men undid his shackles, Jack slightly quicker, and dragged him to a bench. Jack worked on chaining him up again while Morris – Morris started working his cannions down towards his knees. There was a patch of blood on them which shouldn't have been there, even according to any of the worst motivations Aziraphale's mind could ascribe to the men.

He never did have Crowley's level of imagination.

“Stop,” he said. Morris drew his hands away as if Crowley's legs were on fire. Jack let the chains clatter to the floor. “You've killed him. He died without the last sacrament because you were more keen on getting your confession than on being good Christians, and that's going to weigh heavily on your souls. Especially yours, Simon,” he added, because it wasn't only Crowley who could multitask in the afterlife department. He tried to keep the right level of inspiration in his voice; to stop it from rising anxiously until the men were throwing themselves at the nearest church. (To stop it from becoming _miraculous_.)

“What should we do?” Jack asked with the weight of his sins squirming in his chest.

“Give me your horse and cart. Let me take the man's body to pray over and conduct a good Christian burial.”

It was Simon who moved first. Pulled Crowley's hose back up as if he was tending to an infant. Undid the shackles on his ankles and those on his wrists. Picked him up gently and offered to carry him to the cart.

“No thank you,” Aziraphale said coolly. “I'm sure he'd rather I take him. His body.”

Crowley was drifting in and out of consciousness but still managed to roll his eyes at that.

The night air hit Aziraphale sharply. He shrugged off his woollen cloak and wrapped it round Crowley, who'd started shaking before they even left the tunnel.

“Could've had them,” he muttered into Aziraphale's chest. “You took advantage of me almost dying.”

“I wasn't the one taking advantage in there,” Aziraphale snapped. He paused to let the heavy shock of his own guilt settle. “I'm, ah, I'm sorry. I didn't –”

“Let's not,” Crowley said tiredly.

Aziraphale laid him on the bench as slowly as he could. Crowley's eyes fluttered shut as soon as he was horizontal, and Aziraphale clutched relief close to his chest, where the demon wouldn't be able to see.

The ride back was no more gentle than the one over had been. Every time the cart rattled over a stone, Crowley winced in his sleep, or whatever realm of unconsciousness was passing for sleep. It took less than half a mile before Aziraphale had a hand on his shoulder to ensure the way was as smooth for him as possible. If each stone then lit Aziraphale's joints on fire – well. Crowley was asleep and he didn't have to know. It wasn't a miracle by any of Heaven's official standards, after all – just a short, sharp reassignment.

The almonry's grounds were unconsecrated and the building had everything Aziraphale would need. He laid Crowley down on one of the beds.

“Dear little serpent,” he murmured, “can you wake for just a moment? I need to change your garments, but I don't want to...”

He trailed off. It was cowardly, he knew, being unable to say it out loud when Crowley was the one who'd gone through it.

Crowley made some sort of noise in reply.

“Tell me,” Aziraphale pleaded, and it would have to do, “if you can, please tell me.”

The linen of Crowley's smock crinkled loudly as Aziraphale ran the scissors along it. If he'd been awake, Crowley would probably have hated him for it; would have grouched and cursed that Aziraphale was just jealous of how much more fashionable he was.

Instead the only sounds in the almonry were Aziraphale's muttered prayers, Crowley's laboured breathing and the crackle of the fire.

It was much easier to pull different parts of fabric away than it would have been to get Crowley's smock over his head in one piece. His cannions, hose and drawers were a different matter. There was no sort of cutting Aziraphale would trust himself to do by firelight around that area.

He could slap Crowley awake. Could shake him. Could do anything other than stay, frozen and begging, over the body of a demon Heaven had abandoned millennia ago.

“Keep going,” said Crowley, his eyes still shut, the cracked answer to a prayer Aziraphale didn't realise he'd vocalised. “Can hardly get them off myself.”

Aziraphale rolled them down over Crowley's shaking legs. The blood smeared up and down his pale thighs, some dark, some bright, make it hard to tell where the injuries started and stopped. Aziraphale poured some water from the fire into a bowl, adding some cooler water from the jug so it wouldn't burn. He was as gentle as he could be with the cloth; the kindnesses he could offer were limited, so he'd have to make the most of them.

It didn't take long until the bowl was red and he needed to throw its water outside. When he returned from the fireplace after refilling it, Crowley's eyes were open.

“S'nothing, really. It'll heal.”

“Crowley, they almost killed you,” Aziraphale said. He held his hands together to stop them from shaking. Crowley didn't need to see that. “Those men – it wasn't nothing. Their souls – I didn't know.”

“Yeah, well, you did your angelic thing,” Crowley said, then gasped a little when Aziraphale ran the cloth over the hole in his thigh. “I reckon by the end of that, we had about half each. Not really worth the effort on my part, but your report should look good enough.”

Aziraphale said nothing but ran the cloth over Crowley's chest to catch the flaking blood there.

“I'm going to put some snail and honey on these. Brother Bee and Sister Snail are the best physicians we have.”

Crowley opened his mouth to object to either the use of snail slime or of ridiculous nicknames, but started coughing instead, and Aziraphale took full advantage. He spooned enough honey into each of the wounds to cover them, then wrapped Crowley's chest in woollen bandages before the demon could catch his breath.

“Your shoulders,” Aziraphale prompted. The last time he had to fix one of Crowley's joints was in Wessex.

“Urgh,” Crowley said, and swung both arms up over his head. “Go on then.”

They both took a deep breath. Crowley even managed a smile. Aziraphale pushed both his elbows in and the smile faltered, but there they were, both arms back in their sockets.

“M'a bit tired now,” Crowley said softly, “think I might take a nap.”

Aziraphale pulled the blankets over him. “That's fine, my wily little serpent. You sleep as long as you need to. The brothers are used to finding reprobates in the alms house.”

The fire in the grate burned brightly for a moment when Aziraphale threw the smock and drawers in. He would have to send one of the novices to town in the morning before Crowley woke to fetch some new clothes. Until then, he would stand guard, would stoke Crowley's hair, and he would pray for all of them as if anyone were listening.

**Author's Note:**

> I found out it was Clavi's birthday in the morning and wrote _horribly_ quickly to get this done in time. Please forgive any historical handwaving; my excuse is that the Good Omens universe is divergent from ours.


End file.
